Brain arteriovenous malformation
VIII. Complications
Morbidity, mortality and obliteration rates following treatment of AVMs vary significantly in literature according to specific AVM characteristics. Generally, surgical mortality of approximately 3% and a permanent morbidity of 9%, embolization related complications of roughly 10%, and morbidity after radiosurgery of approximately 10% have been reported [27, 28, 83]
There are many complications related to the treatment of AVMs: bleeding, ischemic stroke, venous thrombosis, vasospasm, infection, seizure, radionecrosis (radiosurgery), etc.
Although infrequent, there is a complication that deserves more comment, because it is potentially devastating and specific to post intracranial high flow AVM treatment (resection, occlusion or radiosurgery), that is the post-operative brain swelling and hemorrhage [115]. There are two hypothesis to explain this phenomenon: the normal perfusion pressure breakthrough (NPPB) and occlusive hyperemia (OH).